


Snow [podfic]

by chapscher



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M, Podfic, Sheriff's Secret Police, Snow, Traffic, a word from our sponsors, i hate it when they fight, intern death, night vale medical board
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chapscher/pseuds/chapscher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The City Council has announced incoming snow. Carlos and Cecil get into an argument while they try to understand each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow [podfic]

**Author's Note:**

> I have also cosplayed and posted the entire thing on my WTNV tumblr, ChapscherOfNightVale.

Practice good health. Scientists say that this will add years to your life. However, they have not mentioned where these years come from, what years they will be, who authorized them, or even when they will appear. Welcome to Night Vale.

 

Listeners, urgent news from the City Council. They have announced that, within hours, here, in Night Vale, it will begin to snow. Some of the reporters present proceeded to sort of look up at the clear sky and our burning desert sun before turning back to the city council with a quizzical expression. The City Council shrugged in unison and said that “it had been a while since it snowed around here.” They also said, as they began to pull on heavy parkas and wrap themselves in massive scarves, that we have nothing to worry about. After the press conference was over, the City Council went to the Ralph’s and purchased their entire stock of both bread and fire before returning to City Hall and bolting the doors.

According to the Station Historian, the last time it had snowed in Night Vale was in 1895. The snow fell for seventeen days, resulting in 104 deaths, several hundred dollars in damages, and the best-selling book, _Devouring Your Loved Ones: A Practical Approach to Situational Cannibalism_.

But, as the City Council said, we have nothing to worry about. We are much better prepared for such events than the citizens of 1895 Night Vale. Listeners, you might think that it was shrewd for them to kill each other over a limited food supply and to burn the bodies to keep warm, and you would be right. But that was a _long_ time ago. And who knows what it meant to be human back then?  

 

A message from the Night Vale Medical Board: it has been brought to their attention that, for the last three days, the IV needles they have been using have been crafted from a strange and unauthorized material. “We don’t know how this happened,” an OR nurse told reporters, “We take the standard needles out of their packages as we about to use them, but turn away for a second. And when we turn back, they are replaced with these strange needles that look identical to the ones we usually use.” The usage of the unauthorized needles doesn’t seem to have any adverse side effects, but there is no information on what damage or benefit they could cause in the long-term. The medical community is not yet sure what material the unauthorized needles are made of, but it is clear that it is different from the standard combination of stainless-steel, white gold, and hatred.

    

And now, a word from our sponsors:

When you were a child, you used to sit on your bed in a dreamlike trance and see a figure of a man silhouetted against the soft yellow light of the hallway. It happened so often, but it was always just a dream. Do you remember? When you were in school, you snuck into the auditorium and stepped behind the heavy curtains. There, out of the corner of your eye, you saw a white figure in old clothes standing on the opposite side of the stage, watching you. Do you remember? When you were seventeen years old, you lay awake and wept night after night because you felt that your mother had stopped loving you. Do you remember? You promised a friend that you would visit her in the hospital on Monday, but she died Sunday afternoon. Do you remember? Are you afraid to remember why you have always been haunted in one way or another? Will this knowledge rip your soul into a bloody and repulsive mass of writing viscera? Is that why you choose not to remember? Pepperidge Farm remembers. 

Pepperidge Farm cookies now come with enhanced beta-blockers and are available at grocery stores and pharmacies near you. Pepperidge Farm remembers… and will try not to use this crippling pain against you. 

 

Update on the snow situation. I asked Carlos, the scientist, what exactly we were to expect if it did snow. At first, he insisted that snow in Night Vale would be highly unlikely. But after a little… persuasion, he said that the snow would be powdery and likely to melt as soon as it hits the ground. He asked me if the weather is usually between 70 and 100 degrees with no rain, and I told him yes. And, listeners, this isn’t the first time I told him this. The weather is hot and dry. It is always hot and dry. I don’t know why he doesn’t seem to understand such a basic element of desert living. *sighs* Alright. I shouldn’t be so hard on Carlos. After all, he hasn’t lived here for as long as most of us have.

He said that it doesn’t have to be below freezing for it to snow, and that, in some areas, it can snow with the temperature up to about 45 degrees. Now, listeners, this is still quite cold. But when I said this to Carlos, he started _laughing_ at me. _My Carlos_! Laughing at _me_! He tried to explain that, where he’s from, winter weather was usually 20-something degrees and snow and rain were common. But I don’t think he understood how much he hurt my feelings. There is so much he doesn’t understand in Night Vale and I don’t laugh at him. So why does he laugh at _me_?

 

Now, as I collect myself, here is traffic:

A man sits in his apartment and looks down on the gently lit sidewalk below his bedroom window. Across the street, a gracious park where people walk alone in thought, seldom with dogs, and never hand-in-hand. The man is old and has been for years. In the shadows of the streetlamps, he can see the memories of moving vans and missed busses. He can see the taxi that brought him back home to his lover after a year away in China. He sees himself walking under golden trees after he had written another poem for his then private collection. He also sees the ambulance that first took his lover to the hospital six years ago and the friends who stopped by with food and their condolences three months later. Two years ago, he saw the mail truck stop and deliver the letter saying that his book of poetry will be published.

Now, the old man watches the street for the car of a new lover; one much younger than him - one he is sure will not really fall in love with him. Because if the ambulance comes again tomorrow to take the old man, he wants to make sure that his new lover will have a long, full lifetime to forget him.

This has been traffic.

 

The Sheriff’s Secret Police are cracking down on citizens who have been accumulating too many cardboard boxes. This behavior is becoming increasingly common in Night Vale, especially among the younger citizens who preferred to do most of their holiday shopping online. And now that the holidays are over, there are about a dozen or so cardboard boxes that are now just shoved into a closet… or piled at the foot of a bed if you are of the more degenerate sort. You’re thinking, “These boxes might come in handy if I want to ship something or for when my girlfriend and I move into a new apartment.” Well, you are _wrong_. Cardboard boxes are incredibly dangerous when stored in large quantities. That’s why the post office is run by the government and why our postal workers are trained in advanced military tactics and are tested daily to make sure that they haven’t fallen below _Soul Strength Five_.

It is not yet known exactly what danger the cardboard boxes are capable of. However, the Sheriff’s Secret Police recommend that you bring your cardboard boxes out to the scrublands and to arrange them into a sort of “fort” shape. Or maybe a castle. They would have to see how many boxes will be brought. Additionally, if there are some particularly malicious pillows or bed sheets (not fitted), it is suggested that they are bought to the scrublands as well.

 

Listeners, I am currently being told by Intern Anne that it is now _snowing_. The snow, she described, is as beautiful as it is terrifying. She had wanted to go outside and experience this phenomena first-hand, but the snow has frozen the doors of the station shut. When she looked out the window, she could only see a blindingly grey sky filled with white static – neither the sun nor the void visible through that horrible, _horrible_ sky. I asked what else she could see, if there were any helicopters we could signal to come down and open the doors of the station so we may go home and stand beside our loved ones; but frost had covered the window and completely obscured the outside world. I told her to go on the roof and see what has become of the city, to break through the trapdoor on the ceiling of the intern break room and tell us of what horrors have befallen us.

Oh merciful gods. Listeners, pray in your bloodstone circles that we will-

 

*static*

 

I apologize for the interruption, listeners. But the station lost power and is now running on our emergency generators. Presumably, the snow has completely covered the brownstone spire, filled Radon Canyon, and has crushed every power line in the city. All email, phone communication, and most forms of telepathy have been cut off in the blizzard that threatens to crush our homes, separate close families, and destroy our way of life.

All… All I see on my phone is a message from Carlos sent about a half hour ago. He says he’s sorry for laughing at me earlier and wants to know what I want for dinner. It’s… it’s a memory of the life before. A world without this oppressive cold and even more oppressive snow. I know… I know that when… if I see my Carlos again, that we will not be the same people we once were. And that maybe this traumatic experience will change us so much that we couldn’t be together anymore. I… I pray that’s not the case.

If you are home with your loved ones, hold them close and do not succumb to the freezing sadness that will consume your soul outside – flake by flake - each unique in their fractals of desperation and guilt.

And now, fair listeners, I bring you the weather.

 

SNOW. Lots and lots of snow.

 

Listeners, an amazing thing has happened. As soon as I was willing to let death and the cold embrace me, I heard a loud creek from the hallway and felt a sudden gust of freezing wind. I quickly retracted my previous thoughts and hid under my desk, thinking that my end had finally come for me. The door to the recording studio opened, and my Carlos walked in. He… he was okay. And with my own eyes, I saw tiny white dots of snow melt on his dark and perfect hair.

He helped me to my feet and wrapped this scarf around me. He said he was worried because I didn’t come home for dinner and that I must be cold and hungry as I sat alone in the station.

“There is much about this town that I have yet to understand,” he told me. “And although I am a scientist and want to find answers and new questions, I discovered something I didn’t want to find today. I realized that I can be insensitive and even go so far as to hurt your feelings, Cecil. I didn’t mean to.”

He also said that the snow is actually not as deep as I said it was, but that you might want to stay off the roads for a while if you’re not used to driving in snow and on ice. Then he went to the break room to make me some hot cocoa and told me that he’ll take me home, but only if I feel comfortable leaving the station.

In sadder news, the snow has already taken at least one life. Intern Anne, who had gone onto the roof to see what had become of the city, had slipped on a patch of ice and had fallen back through the trap door and then through the plywood that late Intern Maureen had put over the intern break room’s bottomless pit. Technically, Anne is not dead and she is presumably still falling, but… I’m just calling it now. To her friends and family, she was a good intern and will be missed.

For now, Carlos and I will spend the evening here, at the station. He said something about finding “new ways to keep warm” with me and asked if I would be interested in experimenting with him for science. Of course I will. I love doing science with my Carlos.

Keep warm, gentle listeners, and stay tuned for Schoenberg… probably. I haven’t decided.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.      


End file.
